Invited presentation at the 7th African Unity Renaissance International Conference PhD Colloquium, Sunday 21 May 2017, University of South Africa (Unisa), Pretoria

1. The ‘Doctorateness’
in Doctoral Studies:
A view from the
South
Paul Prinsloo
University of South Africa (Unisa)
@14prinspImage credit: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Birrete_doctoral.jpg
7th African Unity for Renaissance International
Conference PhD Colloquium
Image credit: http://www.davidrumsey.com/maps1150274-31245.html

2. Acknowledgement
I do not own the copyright of any of the images in this
presentation. I hereby acknowledge the original
copyright and licensing regime of every image used. All
the images used in this presentation have been sourced
from Google, Pixabay, Unsplash and Flickr and were
labeled for non-commercial re-use.
This work (excluding the images goverened by their
original licencing) is licensed under a Creative Commons
Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License

3. Overview of the presentation
1. How do we understand ‘doctorateness’? Some
opening questions
2. Proposition: Deconstructing ‘doctorateness’ as
process/product at the intersections of race, gender,
ideologies and the geopolitics of knowledge
production
3. The social imaginary pertaining to ‘doctorateness’
4. ‘Doctorateness’ in the nexus between the discourses
of growth, efficiency, transformation, and quality
5. ‘Doctorateness’ as ‘fit’ and/or not-fitting
6. (In)conclusions

4. Image credit: https://pixabay.com/en/cube-game-cube-instantaneous-speed-568193/
Is “doctorateness” a result of ‘luck’ – being
allocated the ‘right’ supervisor at the ‘right’
time and having the ‘right’ examiner?

5. Image credit: https://pixabay.com/en/heavy-hard-work-hard-work-young-934552/
Or, does ‘doctorateness’ refer to the end
result of surviving the proses of supervision,
often against all odds?

6. Image credit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/photosofsrilanka/3406040079
Or, … does ‘doctorateness’ refer to the process
of pulling (un)willing students (or supervisors)
to respond, make progress (or provide
feedback)?

7. Image credit: https://pixabay.com/en/snail-obstacle-overcoming-will-1447233/
Or, … is receiving a doctorate evidence of the
ability to cross boundaries – epistemological,
ontological and ideological?

8. Image credit: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Birrete_doctoral.jpg
Proposition
We need to deconstruct ‘doctorateness’ as
process/product at the intersections of race,
gender, ideologies and the geopolitics of
knowledge production

9. Image credit: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Birrete_doctoral.jpg
How do we talk about ‘doctorateness’
in a context where…
• ‘Knowledge’ and ‘expertise’ is still
mostly defined according to North-
Atlantic disciplinary canons defined by
white males?
• Most students enrolled for PhDs in the
South African context are black, while
most supervisors are white and male?

10. Image credit: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Birrete_doctoral.jpg
How do we talk about ‘doctorateness’
in a context where… (cont.)
The quality of supervision is found in the nexus
of an increasing number of PhD students;
varying levels of supervisory expertise of
supervisors; underpreparedness of students
and supervisors; supervision: teaching ratios;
and the fact that supervisors often carry
disproportionate blame if/when students don’t
complete…

11. What are some of the issues
in the social imaginary
regarding ‘doctorateness’
and its production [sic] in
the South African context?
Image credit: https://pixabay.com/en/colors-gear-industrial-industry-1866470/

12. 20 September 2012
Site credit: https://mg.co.za/article/2012-09-20-more-phds-are-not-the-answer

13. Site credit: http://www.businessinsider.com/im-about-to-join-a-generation-of-jobless-phds-2014-1
19 January 2014

14. 9 February 2015
Site credit: https://mg.co.za/article/2015-02-09-phds-hold-key-to-sas-development

15. 10 June 2015
Site credit: http://www.702.co.za/articles/3198/why-phd-penetration-in-corporate-sa-is-so-low

16. 29 September 2016
Site credit: http://theconversation.com/south-africas-research-output-will-be-the-biggest-victim-of-student-protests-66223

17. 28 July 2016
Site credit: http://www.scidev.net/global/article-series.africas-phd-renaissance.html

18. Site credit: https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/opinionista/2017-05-05-we-need-a-probe-into-why-there-are-so-few-black-phds/
5 May 2017

19. UNIVERSITY
Supervisor
Student
Growth
TransformationQuality
Efficiency
International and
national
environment
International and
national
environment
International and
national
environment
International and
national
environment
Adapted from Mouton, J. (2016). The doctorate in South Africa. Trends, challenges and constraints. In M. Fourie-Malherbe, R. Albertyn, C.
Aitchinson and E. Bitzer, Postgraduate supervision. Future foci for the knowledge society, (pp. 51-84). Sun Media: Stellenbosch.

20. These four discourses “are often at odds with
one another; they co-exist – often in tension –
and sometimes even seem contradictory when
taken together. The pursuit of increased
numbers (growth) may, for example, have a
negative impact on the achievement of quality
and even compromise efficiency”
(Mouton, 2016, p. 51)
Image credit: https://pixabay.com/en/spider-web-dew-drops-droplets-water-1021041/

21. These discourses – and the imperatives embedded
in them – operate in a complex (higher education)
system of recursive causality (feedback loops) and
emergent properties (different levels of impact)
(Mouton, 2016, p. 51)
Image credit: https://pixabay.com/en/spider-web-dew-drops-droplets-water-1021041/

22. Image credit: https://www.slideshare.net/British_Council/going-global-2016-opening-research-capacity-british-council-south-african-
perspective
“Doctoral enrolments and graduations increased by an average
rate of 6.4% between 1996 and 2012/13 – a rate higher than any
other degree level” (Mouton, 2016, p. 53)

23. Growth
Department of Science and Technology (DST). (2008). Innovation towards a knowledge-based economy. Ten-year innovation plan 2008-2018.
Pretoria: Government Publishers. Retrieved from http://esastap.org.za/download/sa_ten_year_innovation_plan.pdf
“… the country’s production of PhD graduates is too low, and that South
Africa is near the bottom of the list of PhD-producing countries
worldwide” (Mouton, 2016, p. 55) [referring to the ASSAf (2010) study]

24. “To build a knowledge-based economy
positioned between developed and
developing countries, South Africa will
need to increase its PhD production rate
by a factor of about five over the next
10-20 years”
(DST, 2008, p. 28)
Growth

25. Efficiency
Four criteria to measure the efficiency in
doctoral production:
1. The ratio of graduations to enrolments;
2. Cohort analysis of graduating students;
3. Progression and completion rates of
doctoral students; and
4. The ratio of PhD students to academic
staff with doctorates
Mouton (2016, p. 58)

26. Efficiency
Research shows a marginal improvement in
efficiency from 6.4% (in 1996) to 6.4% (in
2012).
Of particular interest is his finding that “every
staff member at a South African university
with a PhD ‘delivers’ a PhD in about three and
a half years”
(Mouton, 2016, pp. 61-61)

27. Transformation
The relative proportion of South African black
doctoral graduates “increased from 8% to 44%
while the proportion of whites declined from
86% to 43%”
“By 2012, 42% of all doctoral graduates were
female, compared to 35% in 1996”
(Mouton, 2016, p. 64)

28. 6 October 2014
Site credit: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/oct/06/south-africa-race-black-professors

29. 18 August 2014
Site credit: https://africacheck.org/reports/how-many-professors-are-there-in-sa/

30. Site credit: https://africacheck.org/reports/how-many-professors-are-there-in-sa/
18 August 2014

31. Quality
The seven dimensions of quality in doctoral
education:
• The quality of the doctoral candidate (at entry level)
• The quality of the doctoral programme
• The quality of the doctoral supervisor
• The quality of the supervisory process
• The quality of the doctoral graduate (at exit)
• The quality of the doctoral thesis
• The quality of any journal paper or presentation
emanating from the doctoral thesis
[Cloete, Mouton and Sheppard (2015) in Mouton, 2016, p. 68]

32. ‘Doctorateness’ as the result of ‘fit’…
• ‘Fit’ between the student and his/her chosen focus,
methodology, discipline, institution, research
expertise of the supervisor
• ‘Fit’ between the student and his or her supervisor -
interpersonal
• ‘Fit’ between the supervisor and the amount and foci
of students allocated to him or her
• ‘Fit’ between the student aspirations and time-
management with the workload, aspirations and
time-management of supervisors
(Adapted from Subotzky and Prinsloo, 2011; Prinsloo, 2017)

33. ‘Doctorateness’ as the result of ‘fit’ (cont.)
• ‘Fit’ of students and supervisors within the broader
disciplinary networks of inclusion and exclusion
• ‘Fit’ between students and supervisors in a particular
political, social, economic, technological, legal and
environmental context
• ‘Fit’ between the supervisor and institutional policy
frameworks, processes, networks of inclusion and
exclusion, tacit knowledge and contacts
(Adapted from Subotzky and Prinsloo, 2011; Prinsloo, 2017)

34. (In)conclusion
ss‘Doctorateness’ refers to both process and
product; is simultaneously emerging and
final, forever (in)complete, and is the result
of ‘fit’... It emerges as [potential counter]
narrative at the intersections of race, gender,
institutional and international geopolitics of
knowledge production

35. Paul Prinsloo
Research Professor in Open Distance Learning (ODL)
College of Economic and Management Sciences,
Office number 3-15, Club 1, Hazelwood, P O Box 392
Unisa, 0003, Republic of South Africa
T: +27 (0) 12 433 4719 (office)
T: +27 (0) 82 3954 113 (mobile)
prinsp@unisa.ac.za
Skype: paul.prinsloo59
Personal blog: http://opendistanceteachingandlearning.wordpress.com
Twitter profile: @14prinsp
THANK YOU